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on the wagon/ off the wagon

Would you be kind enough to explain to me the meaning of the following epigram?

“It’s better to have been on and off the wagon than never to have been on at all”.

Would you be able to give an answer to that Hamlet’s question?

I know the classical meaning of the well-known idiom”on the wagon” = “abstaining from drinking alcoholic bevarages”, as in: “Don't offer her wine; she's on the wagon.” This expression is a shortening of on the water wagon, referring to the horse-drawn water car once used to spray dirt roads to keep down the dust. The antonym off the wagon is used for a resumption of drinking.

After that David Soul went on the wagon and, according to his friend and publicist Robert Palmer, "The erratic behaviour that led to the difficulties he had with his last wife is long gone.